Coach proving it's all about the 'System'

Clients include Rider, WFHS, Iowa Park

Devontay Chaffin has scored 18 touchdowns over his last 11 games. Many times the Coyotes are able to find favorable matchups by not waiting until a defense has lined up.

Louisiana Tech offensive coordinator Tony Franklin devised the System offense to help high school coaching. staffs with a plan of attack for every day, be it a practice session or a big game. His offense at Middle Tennessee State last season scored 30 or more points in nine games, including a bowl victory over Southern Miss.

Rider quarterback Malcolm Carter was more of a guy who handed the ball off or tried high-percentage passes the past two seasons. This year, the Raiders are moving faster and even splitting time with J.T. Barrett, Carter has been a weapon.

Ronald W. Erdrich/Reporter-News

Iowa Park quarterback Lee Clubb, a running back a year ago, has picked up the System offense the Hawks are using really quickly and the team has scored more than 30 points in each game this year.

Torin Halsey/Times Record News

The famous Plato quote says that necessity is the mother of invention.

For football coach Tony Franklin, necessity was the father of the System offense that he helped create, copyright and sell to high school programs around the nation.

Franklin, currently the offensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech, was out of work at the time. He obviously wanted something to sell. But he didn’t want to sell the same kind of coaching clinic that was already out there. The kind that left him wondering why he gave up three days for a social outing.

The “System” is about more than an offensive set or a game plan, although it involves that, too. Franklin gives coaching staffs a chance to get on the same page and have a plan to follow.

“It’s kind of like paint by numbers,” Franklin said. “I’m a former high school coach and I had a huge frustration with going to clinics, spending three days and walking away feeling like I got very little knowledge. I wanted to put together a great product which really helped high school coaches.

“I wanted to create the perfect football system that I would have wanted. To have everything from A to Z. From fundamental drills to game-planning, game-managing and everything people would need.”

His list of clients says it’s working. He went from seven or eight in 2006 and now has more than 400. That includes Wichita Falls High School, Rider and Iowa Park. Bushland uses Franklin’s System and advanced to the Class 2A title game in its fourth season. It did that damage in the playoffs without its starting All-State quarterback.

Rider was going to it more so this year whether or not Scott Ponder had changed jobs. When he moved to Iowa Park, he said that he was sticking with the Franklin system. And Rider’s Jim Garfield said his assistants at Rider have done a great job with it.

“We’ve been using it some since 2007,” Ponder said. “It’s a wonderful clinic and does a great job of getting coaches on the same page. It’s goes across a pretty broad spectrum.”

So what does it look like in practice?

The Franklin System offense uses the spread offense, but also stresses the importance of pace and tempo. The idle time of a huddle was overrated apparently.

Wichita Falls High School can keep a no-huddle moving too fast for a defense to line up when it is completing passes and moving the chains. Rider has been able to do that some with its improved running game this year.

It’s not all the same. Rider puts its plays on wristbands. The Coyotes don’t use them. As always, Ponder is guarded with his secrets.

Artificial turf made it impossible to draw up plays in the dirt. But without a huddle, that’d be impossible anyway. Franklin wants to keep the defensive coaches that he very much respects from doing too much drawing.

“The goal is to take coaching out of the game,” Franklin laughed. “I’m not a very smart football coach or scheme coach. But this can let coaches be great teachers. And if you line up fast enough, then a defense can’t do what they want to do. Make it a player’s game instead of coach’s game. And then when fatigue sets in, you’re in trouble.”

Garfield, one of those defensive guys the System has been trying to beat, believes this is going to give the Raiders an edge in the conditioning department. There are more plays in practice as well as the games.

“What it’s done is that we have a little more gas in the tank,” Garfield said. “People are tweaking it. At first, the spread was all about the quarterback, who was having to make calls according to alignment. This takes it out of the quarterback’s hands and puts it on the coordinator’s hands.

“And the offense does a lot for morale. You can spread it around a bit.”

Gone, it seems, are the days of one tailback getting 30 carries of his team’s 60 or so plays. Lavender is hoping for 78 or more offensive snaps. More chances for his speedsters to score. For the Raiders and their two-quarterback system, it means everyone is getting a chance to play.

And Rider is employing three different speeds on offense: a fast tempo, a freeze tempo and a NASCAR pace, where they may be trying to get the officials moving a little faster so they can go on the whistle.

“The old two-minute offense has been around as long as I’ve been around,” Garfield said. “But this allows you to use the strengths of your kids and keep them off-balance.”

While Ponder and Garfield both give the program a thumbs-up, they believe some high school teams will move away from the spread back to traditional formations like the wing-T. The coach seemingly has more control, at least on game night, in a traditional system.

Franklin acknowledges that fact, but while coaches might have gone to a coaches convention and come back home and tinkered with the spread, they won’t usually bail too early on this System. Money says they’ll stick with it.

“The financial commitment is so steep that they can’t really go back to school and not do it, so most people make a commitment,” Franklin said. “We’re trying to give them the best tools. We have a conference call on Sunday nights so they can talk about things they need help with on a game plan.”

And unlike Franklin, the high school coaches can’t pick out their players.

“When you coach high school football there are going to be cycles,” Franklin said. “Cycles of players who are really, really good. Then cycles where players are really bad. What we want to do is maximize your ability to score points and be able to win two or three extra games every year.

“Every place is different. At Middle Tennessee last year, I had a quarterback who ran for 1,200 and passed for 2,800. This year, our quarterbacks won’t run that much and it’s different. What’s important is that you have a system. A plan for practice every day. You can make your game plan in advance and it makes your job a lot easier. It’s a paint by numbers and you insert the talent.

WFHS coach Jayson Lavender has been in love with the System so much that he even helps with some high school camps for the System, which Franklin can’t be involved in as a college coach.

Lavender’s Coyotes were a good advertisement for Franklin in a record-setting opener, but Lawton MacArthur was a better testimony for it last week when it beat the Coyotes, 49-14.

The Hawks have broken the 30-point barrier in each of their first two games with a balanced offense and it’s all still brand-new to them. Rider had more rushing yards in the first half of its first game this year than it had in about any entire game last year.

“It’s taking off and guys are getting jobs because of it,” Lavender said of the System offense. “It’s one of the best deals going. We took our junior high coaches to it. Before I got the head coaching job, I’d work seven camps a summer. This year, we had about 150 kids at our camp.

“Teams that are running it may look completely different and it can be applied in different ways. But I don’t think it’s a fad. It’s predicated on tempo and pace. As an offensive football team, you determine the pace and not anybody else determining it for you.”

The roots of the System came from Kentucky, with current McMurry coach Hal Mumme and a staff that included Mike Leach. Current Louisiana Tech head coach Sonny Dykes was there, too. Mumme’s Air Raid system was born from Lavell Edwards at Brigham Young who had success with lesser talent for years.

Franklin has been offensive coordinator at Kentucky, Troy, Auburn, Middle Tennessee and now Louisiana Tech. He was fired by Tommy Tuberville at Auburn, but his style wasn’t put away as Tuberville hired a Franklin protégé in Neal Brown at Texas Tech.

The branches of the System have now reached Wichita County. If it gives birth to three Wichita County playoff berths, it’s a good bet that Franklin will gain some more North Texas customers.